Giro d'Italia

Last weekend the Giro d'Italia came by my house! Well, it wasn't on my doorstep, but it was about 5 minutes away. I got there about half an hour before they were supposed to arrive to get a good spot on the side of the road they would be coming down. As you can see from the sequence of photos, first came the police- about 10 of them on their motorcycles. Then the first pack of cyclists, which had the famous "pink shirt" (whomever is winning the race at the time gets to wear the pink shirt). Between packs of cyclists, along came the team cars with their extra bicycles on top. Note: the photo of the random woman who whizzed along with the giro d'italia bikers - she has her tongue sticking out!
The funniest part of the race were the giro d'italia trucks that kept pulling up before the racers got to each point. The drivers of these ice cream looking trucks were were shouting with loudspeakers trying to sell giro d'italia stuff (t-shirts, stuffed mascots, etc.)

Great Photos of Italy Squidoo Lens

I'm working on a Squidoo Lens called "Great Photos of Italy". It presently has a link to this blog, my website, my flickr pictures, and my cafepress shop (where I sell all of my cool posters, t-shirts, framed prints, etc.). All of these contain my best Italy photographs and are updated regularly.

Patron Saint: Santa Monica

All towns in Italy have patron saints. Particular saints are associated with different trades, groups or geographical areas (ex: Saint Anthony of Padua one of the most famous saints, is often called upon by Catholics to help find lost possessions). Wikipedia has a good description and list of many patron saints. However, it does not include Saint Monica, who is the parton of the little town I live in on the weekend. Saint Monica is the namesake of the Santa Monica, California in western Los Angeles County, which was first visited by missionaries on the saint's feast day. She is the patron saint of wives, mothers, and abuse victims.

Every year they have fireworks for Santa Monica. Last year they were so close that they we thought they would land on our terrace. Probably for safety reasons they were shooting them a little farther away this year. We were actually looking down on them, whereas last year they seemed to be at the same height as us

Cambiano, Italy: quaint town

cambiano

We were heading towards Parma on all of the windy backroads instead of taking the highway, when we came upon this place called Cambiano and decided to stop. It is the Italy you always imagine with old yet clean buildings, grannies sitting around out chatting... but never quite find when you go to the major tourist destinations that are filled with crowds of tourists (surprise), souvenirs, tourist menus, shops, shops and more shops. One of the restaurants in town was planning a special dinner that night with local products. We were really hoping to be able to check it out, but apparently it was fully booked...by the entire town.

Valentino Park, Turin

magnolia_tree

Since Turin is a "city", many people rush to its parks on nice weekend days. (I put word city in quotes because I am still shocked after living here for years that you can drive almost anywhere in a matter of minutes with the exception of peak rush hour). Turin is definitely starting to get a little more international than a few years ago. There is actually a huge Romanian population, so some billboards have ads in Romanian. When we went to Valentino Park on a Sunday, it was like being in a foreign country with all of the languages that were flying about!